Non optometry background

[lakewood]

HYPOTHETICALLY

If: I was a graduate with a BS in psychology, GPA 3.55, no biology or chem courses taken (but I have calc, english, and one 4-credit physics course), and I had not yet taken OAT

Then: How would you recommend I spend the next year?

I plan to fulfill the pre-req's at a local community college.

Should I apply this fall, or wait a year until after I have completed the other prereq's at the local community college?
What is the latest I should take the OAT for applying this fall?


Do optometry programs accept students to start in the winter semester?

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[sweetie02]

I would say complete the pre-requisites first. As I am to believe, I don't think you are even considered unless you finish the pre-requisites in a given time period. But, you should contact the schools themselves and ask them personally. Some may consider you as long as you finish them before you start school the next year. As far as I know, your GPA is competitive and it doesn't really matter what undergraduate degree you got.

 

[cunikki]

i would look into what prereqs the schools you are looking at need. i find it kinda hard to believe its even possible to get through all the physics, chem, bio stuff that you need in one year. you dont have to finish all the prereqs before applying but there is really no way that any school is going to give you an interview before you have any grades from any bio/chem classes. there is no such thing as getting admitted winter quarter since pretty much all schools work in a very specific way with having classes only once per year....
i would look into what prereqs you can take fall and spring and if its possible to get most of them out of the way this year i would do that and then study hard for the oat and take it next summer and apply early fall for that next year. good luck!

 

[lakewood]

I have looked at all of the prerequisites and it appears that I would still need to take the following courses:

Physics with lab: 2 semesters
General Chemistry with lab: 2 semesters
General Biology with lab: 2 semesters
Organic chem: 1 semester
Biochem: 1 semester

That's 8 semester courses, each of which is available at my local community college. It looks tough, but it is doable.

Question: Would a physics course in astronomy PHY111 that I have already taken satisfy one of the physics requirements? Or would I need something specifically called "general physics"? There was no lab. Would it really be that big of a deal, are the requirements that strict?

 

[Spearmint1]

I would try taking those classes in a year and half. Doubling up on gen science classes might be fine for one semester but try taking three (w/labs) would kill you. One more thing, some school require a full year of organic and also microbiology w/lab.

 

[lakewood]

I think I can handle the course load. It will be a lot of work.

Hypothetically then, in January I would only have 4 prereq's left, which I would complete in the spring. I could apply in January and take the OAT in early 2008. Explain in interviews that I'll be fully prepared by the fall, and hopefully have the scores to prove it.

So unless I'm overlooking something, I could pull this off THIS YEAR, right?

 

[cunikki]

the problem with trying to do it this year is that if you are not the strongest applicant you dont want to be applying that late in the cycle. if you apply in january about 50-75% of the seats at any given school are already taken. are you going to have any shadowing/working in an optical experience?? if you get rejected from a school it makes it nearly impossible to get in the next year.. you need to have done a lot of stuff to improve your application in the intervening year for them to even think of giving you a chance. this only really applies to schools that are rolling admissions... so i guess where are you applying? i know berkeley has non rolling admissions but i think they stop accepting applications in like dec or jan. basically i would look into where you want to go to and see. ??? what schools are you applying to where you dont need anatomy and physiology and labs, microbiology?? etc???

 

[lakewood]

I was so far thinking of SUNY, PCO, ICO, NECO, and Nova.

One email response from a program said that it would not accept it if preprequisites were from a community college. WHAT??? Has anyone ever heard of that before?

 

[cpw]

part of the problem too is some of those classes are prereqs for other classes. You have to have bio and gen chem before you can take organic. And, I think organic is usually a pre-req to biochem. So, you're looking at at LEAST 1.5 to 2 years of pre-req

 

[cpw]

Do optometry programs accept students to start in the winter semester?

never

 

[asmaka19]

I was so far thinking of SUNY, PCO, ICO, NECO, and Nova.

One email response from a program said that it would not accept it if preprequisites were from a community college. WHAT??? Has anyone ever heard of that before?

Lakewood, I was meaning to tell you that you should make sure that the optometry schools are going to accept pre-requisites from a community college, but I guess you know.

They probably all don't-that's not surprising or unusual. Most graduate programs don't accept pre-reqs from a community college, even my masters program doesnt. In fact, many undergraduate institutions don't accept required credits transferred from a community college.

I mean it totally makes sense if you think about it, my friend who made D's in high school and couldn't get accepted into a lower-tier university goes to community college and has like a 3.8 GPA there. The instructors are not phd's, you only need a masters to teach there adnd the labs are pretty much a joke. So it totally wouldn't be fair for someone like her (or you) to be able to compete with the rest of us trying to get into optometry school with her 3.8 pre-req GPA!

Anyway.....if you were HYPOTHETICALLY a BS in psychology how on earth did you not take any biology courses????????

 

[lakewood]

I've been in contact with four programs and none has absolutely rejected the idea of community college credits. One program said it would reduce my probability of an interview, one said that good OAT scores would be enough to counter-balance it, one said it's not a problem at all, and one said it's fine as long as the community college is accredited.

So it's not the best way to get the courses done in the admissions sense, but in my situation it may be the only option, financially and logistically speaking. It's humbling to think of going back to community college but that's just an added bonus.


And to answer your question: at my undergrad, a BS in psych had no biology requirements, just specialty coursework within psychology and more psychology lab requirements.

 

[asmaka19]

I've been in contact with four programs and none has absolutely rejected the idea of community college credits. One program said it would reduce my probability of an interview, one said that good OAT scores would be enough to counter-balance it, one said it's not a problem at all, and one said it's fine as long as the community college is accredited.

So it's not the best way to get the courses done in the admissions sense, but in my situation it may be the only option, financially and logistically speaking. It's humbling to think of going back to community college but that's just an added bonus.


And to answer your question: at my undergrad, a BS in psych had no biology requirements, just specialty coursework within psychology and more psychology lab requirements.

Well then you're lucky that you've had positive responses! Have you looked into taking independent study courses through any universities? I've taken a couple during my undergrad in order to get my credit requirements in time for graduation and it's pretty affordable and convenient. I took 2 through louisiana state university and it was only around $300 for each course, I took biochem independent study through iowa state university and I think it was around 500 or 600 dollars for that one. It's probably going to be more work than community college but if you do well it'll be better for you in terms of OD admissions. You obviously wouldn't be able to take any labs through IS but it's something you might want to look into for the others.

 

[lakewood]

Interesting idea. I've never done an independent study. What's involved, and how do you even set that up?

 

[asmaka19]

Interesting idea. I've never done an independent study. What's involved, and how do you even set that up?

Here's the link for the LSU independent study page which is probably the cheapest IS courses:

http://is.lsu.edu/home.asp?level=CO&online=0&nid=101

I'll probably be taking psychology through them, it's the only pre-req I have left and i don't feel like going through the hassles of attending a university just for one course. You can also google distance learning and independent study and find other universities.

 

[Spearmint1]

you should be careful with those classes, Most school don't accept those kind of classes. In fact, few school even have them.

 

[asmaka19]

you should be careful with those classes, Most school don't accept those kind of classes. In fact, few school even have them.

What are you talking about???

If you look at the list of distance learning courses offered you'll see that all the general stuff is there (like pre-reqs). What do you mean "those kind of classes"? Taking a general biology course with LSU gives you credit for a general biology course from LSU whether it was taken traditionally in class, online, or as an independent study; it's the exact same curriculum and I'm sure that rule applies other places that offer such distance learning. The type of institution matters more than the format of the course.

I took three independent study courses from 2 different universities as an undergrad at a private university and my advisor actually suggested that I do that over taking them at my university over the summer and paying like 5 times as much. Of course my advisor pre-approved the classes that I was taking just as she would have had to preapprove me taking classes at any other university to get credit. Also, they were required for my major and not some random electives.

When I applied to masters programs they received official transcripts from the universities where I took the IS classes (in my case it was LSU and iowa state) along with the university I graduated from and it was never even an issue, why would it be?

When I apply to opto schools they'll be receiving 4 transcripts: from my undergraduate, graduate, iowa state, and LSU-they're not going to care whether the courses were in class, independent study, online or whatever and in the end I saved some money and a whole term of school by opting for the IS option.

SO the point is, I'm giving lakewood some other possible options for him/her to consider that might be better for him/her in terms of OD admissions instead getting all those pre-reqs from a community college if the limitation was money and time, that's all! No need to "be carefel"

 

[lakewood]

Thanks, I DEFINITELY appreciate the advice. It does sound like a viable option in terms of money and time, which are two things I'd like to save as much of as possible!

The problem is that I need a lab for each prerequisite: General Bio, General Chem, General Physics, Organic Chem, Microbio, and Biochem. If I were to apply to the five schools I listed above in this thread, each one of these courses would require a lab.

I don't suppose that an "independent study" would somehow negate the lab requirement, would it?

And another question about prerequisites: For courses like Organic chem, microbio, and biochem... I have seen "Principles of _____", "Fundamentals of _____" and "General _____". Is there an understanding that the prerequisites must all be "General" ? I noticed that courses called Principles sometimes have fewer prerequisites of their own (and would therefore be easier for someone in my position to get into, sooner). Do these courses even qualify?

 

[asmaka19]

Lakewood,

Yes you can't take labs IS and I'm pretty sure the lab requirement will not be negated. If you're doubtful I would run the potential courses by admissions advisors at the OD schools you're interested in before taking the class under the assumption that it'll be accepted. They will probably ask to see the course curriculum which I believe you an obtain from the site by clicking on the course.

OHHH I just figured out something, you and spearmint were probably looking at the online courses list which has these specialized random classes. Get out of that screen, click on the 'course offerings' tab on the left and that should take you to the independent study and NOT the online courses. If you click on biology from the LSU website there's like 4 courses and two of them are generaly biologies, I'm pretty sure those are going to be accepted, but it doesn't look like they have any chemistries.

I took human physiology through them, I had to turn in assignments through the mail. One for every chapter (so in total like 18) and there was a total of 3 exams. The class took me about 9 months to finish but that's because I didn't prioritize it and kept putting the book down for like weeks at a time-it's possible to finish it in 3 months. The one that I took through iowa state distane learning was biochemistry,the format is totally different. The class beigins and ends at specific dates (like 2 or 3 months). There were no assignments, I was sent a CD with the professors class lectures and there were 4 exams/quizzes that had to be taken online at a specific date (open book-timed). So that course was much less busy work but doesn't give you as much leeway in terms of schedule.

Good luck

 

[lakewood]

If you click on biology from the LSU website there's like 4 courses and two of them are generaly biologies, I'm pretty sure those are going to be accepted, but it doesn't look like they have any chemistries.

But with no lab, they won't be accepted, no? Are there opt programs that don't require labs ?

 

[aam0050]

And another question about prerequisites: For courses like Organic chem, microbio, and biochem... I have seen "Principles of _____", "Fundamentals of _____" and "General _____". Is there an understanding that the prerequisites must all be "General" ?

Yes, you should take General. Always make sure from someone at the University, since obvious different schools work in different ways, and none of us know anything about your school. I took a "Fundamentals of Physics I" back in CC when I didn't know any better, and it didn't transfer to my four-year university.

You can call the schools to confirm pre-req lab requirements, but I think they would all require labs for your most of your sciences. You can also go by credit hours required. For example, if 4 semester credits are required, that assumes it's one 3-hr course plus a 1-hr lab. All states/schools are different when counting semesterly/quarterly hours.

 

[aam0050]

But with no lab, they won't be accepted, no? Are there opt programs that don't require labs ?

I think at UHCO you don't need a biochem lab (they only require 3 credit hours, which is only lecture). At my undergraduate, there were two types of biochem courses choose from for graduation. 1) 2 semesters of a more intense biochem (6 hrs total) with no labs or 2) 1 semester of an easier biochem class with a lab (we called it "baby biochem".. so I was definitely all over that!!)

But for gen bio, gen chem, ochem (that's pretty much most of your pre-reqs already) you need labs I'm pretty sure for each opt school. They're fun and easy anyway, just time consuming. ;-)

Good luck!

 

[asmaka19]

Also, I don't think a lab is required for every pre-req course; for example, I know for ICO they require an ochem but not the ochem lab.

 

[futureopt12]

One email response from a program said that it would not accept it if preprequisites were from a community college.


Lakewood, can you let me know which school that is?
Thanks